A spilled glass of wine, and a series of realisations
by The Lady Rogue
Summary: Will figures it out.


The revelation happens in a lightning quick series of realisations.

It all starts when Will bumps his elbow on his glass of wine and it shatters on the wooden lacquer, shards of glass scattering to the corners of the room, twinkling up at him like diamonds.

The wine is red, and in the candle light Will thinks for a moment that it could be blood, lying there in a puddle on the floor.

Hannibal's entire body stiffens, and they both turn to watch the wine seep through a crack in the floor.

But it's not a crack. Will realises it's trap door leading to a basement. A hidden trap door.

There's a wariness in Hannibal's eyes as he turns to look at Will. Will realises that whatever's in that basement Hannibal desperately doesn't want him to find out.

Hannibal's hand tightens around the knife in his hand and Will realises that whatever secrets Hannibal has he's willing to kill to keep them.

Hannibal steps away from where he's preparing uncooked pigs heart and Will realises everything.

Oh god. Sounders of three. The Chesapeake Ripper thinks of them as pigs.

Will shoves away from the counter in an explosive movement, and his gun is in his hand quicker than one could blink. Hannibal starts forward then freezes again when Will removes the safety. For once, his hands aren't shaking.

"Don't take another step," he says. "Don't move. Don't speak. Just stay right there."

A smile quirks across Hannibal's lips. "What are you going to do with me, dear Will?"

It's taking everything Will has not to pull the trigger.

"Drop the knife. Kick it toward me." Hannibal doesn't move for a long moment. His gaze flicks between Will and the gun. Will shrugs his shoulders, loosening them, prepared to shoot the moment Hannibal lunges forward. Hannibal narrows his eyes, and bends, placing the knife on the floor and then he's kicking it toward Will.

"Very good," Will mocks. Not taking his gaze from Hannibal he feels for his phone, pulls it out his pocket. He hits speed dial one, and places the phone between his neck and his chin.

Hannibal's eyes are dark and dangerous.

"What?" Jack snarls on the other end of the phone.

"I've found the Chesapeake Ripper."

"What!"

"Come to Hannibal Lecter's house."

"What are you trying to say, Will?"

"I can prove it," Will responds. "Just come, and bring a gun, and some handcuffs." He hangs up.

Will's not looked away from Hannibal for one moment; neither has Hannibal looked away from Will.

"What now?" Hannibal asks softly. "Will it satisfy you to see me imprisoned? After all, we share a bond, do we not?"

Will doesn't answer. That way lies madness.

"Perhaps you would prefer to kill me yourself? Just pull the trigger, Will. Doing bad things to bad people makes us feel so good, does it not?"

Garret Jacob Hobbs appears over Hannibal's left shoulder, and Hannibal surges forward the moment Will's gaze flicks away from his.

Will doesn't think. He pulls the trigger and Hannibal collapses to the floor, a bullet to the thigh, but he's lying over the knife he'd discarded earlier so Will keeps moving, kicking Hannibal in the shoulder and into a cupboard. He squats to pick up the knife, and throws it across to the other side of the room.

His hands still aren't shaking.

Hannibal lies back against the fridge, hands tightly clenched over the bullet wound, a smile upon his face. "Magnificent," he proclaims. "If only you would allow me to further mould your becoming."

Will shivers. Who knows what Hannibal has done to his mind under the guise of 'psychiatric care'.

"My hallucinations are not stress induced," he realises.

Hannibal chuckles. "Indeed they are not. You have encephalitis. Your brain smells quite sweet when it is burning itself up from the inside."

Now Will's hands are shaking, but only with fury. He desperately wants to pull the trigger again, knows that he'd be justified when they search Hannibal's basement. Nobody will care if Will kills the Chesapeake Ripper, especially not if it's in self-defence. But in some sick way that would play into Hannibal's design, forcing him to become a murderer.

"If you kill me, you will never discover what truly happened with Gideon," Hannibal says, a gleam in his eyes.

Will flinches. His memories are blurred, and now he's even less sure of the fine line between fantasy and reality. What has been doing when he blacks out? What has Hannibal done to him? He's tempted to beat the information out of him, when he notices that Hannibal's wound has stopped bleeding, and one of his hands is casually hidden out of sight.

"Hands in the air," he growls. Annoyance and respect flickers over Hannibal's face. He raises both hands, a knife in one of them. "On the floor, slide it toward me."

Will throws that knife away too, and is satisfied by the rip in the wallpaper it causes when it hits the wall, even more so by Hannibal's grimace.

"That was rude, Will."

"That's your victimology," he realises. Hannibal's grin confirms it.

They stay in silence after that, their breathing the only counterpoint to the noises outside on the street, and they both hear Jack pull up, slamming the door of his car. He breaks the door down and pauses in the entrance to the kitchen. Will pretends not to notice that Jack's gun is settled halfway between the two of them.

"Fuck," Jack swears. "Buggering fuck, if you're wrong about this Will…"

"I know," Will says. "But when have I ever been wrong?" He doesn't look away from Hannibal, not for a single moment.

"You were wrong about Nicolas Boyle."

"No I wasn't," Will realises. "Was I, Hannibal? Marissa was killed by the Chesapeake Ripper, wasn't she? Abigail lied. You're the copycat killer."

"You are, of course, correct, Will," Hannibal says. There's something fond in his voice that makes Will nauseous. "Hello Jack."

"Shit," Jack says. His gun is now pointed at Hannibal and he pulls cuffs from his pocket.

"Careful," Will warns. "He's already come at me with two knives."

"On your stomach," Jack orders. Hannibal moves slowly. "Hands behind your head, lace your fingers."

Jack cuffs Hannibal, and starts calling it in. Will sways, a weight off his shoulders as he realises he's caught the Ripper, he's not going crazy and Jack believes him.

He's watched with dark eyes as he pads over to the spilt wine and the trap door. He finds the catch to open it, and inches down the stairs.

It's set up like a slaughterhouse, freezers lining the walls and plastic sheeting and chains set up to help butcher the 'pigs'. It'll be a field day for forensics. Will retreats to the kitchen. There's a medic leaning over Hannibal, treating his wound. Hannibal's offering criticism, and it makes Will want to laugh, or maybe cry.

How did they miss what was under their noses for so long? He's a surgeon, involved in the case, charming and… Will shakes himself. It would not do to dwell.

"He eats them," Will tells Jack. "Tell me, have you ever attended one of Hannibal's dinner parties?" The disgusted expression on Jack's face tells Will all he needs to know.

The FBI agents charged with escorting Hannibal to his cell in Quantico are confident to the point of cocky in their ability to contain him, and brush off Will's warning. He watches the police van leave with a sense of trepidation.

He's not surprised when twenty minutes later Jack gets the call: Hannibal Lecter's escaped.

Jack swears like a sailor and punches the wall.

"We'll never find him."

Will rubs his eyes and glances at the spot where Hannibal had lain, dark eyes fixed upon Will, unbothered by both Will's gun and the wound in his leg, a lazy smile curving over his lips as he contemplated what Will had become.

"Unless he wants us to," Will says and hopes with all his heart that Hannibal doesn't.


End file.
